[Slight OT] TDPL in Russia

[Nick Sabalausky]

"Steven Schveighoffer" <schveiguy at yahoo.com> wrote in message 
news:op.vh32icf3eav7ka at localhost.localdomain...
>
> The  good news about copyright is that the ideas are not what's protected, 
> it's  the expression of the ideas.  So you can take ideas from copyrighted 
> material and rephrase it to continue innovating.
>

Yea, until the copyright owner, which is most likely some deep-pocket 
corporation instead of the individual who actually created it in the first 
place, decides to sue you even though they know damn well they don't have a 
case. Since you're unlikely to be a filthy rich as them, you're forced to 
pay them a settlement even though you and them both know damn well that 
you're in the right and the courts *would* side with you *if* it were to 
actually go that far. This *does* happen, and it happens plenty. Even if 
piracy destroys the copyright system, so does corporate extortion.